Bored
by SevLovesLily
Summary: A Head-Canon background of Sherlock Holmes from his birth up to University, and how bored he always is.


**I recently became obsessed with_ Sherlock_ on BBC, and a couple days ago, I started thinking about what Sherlock must have been like as a child. And so I wrote about it. This is basically a whole bunch of Head Canon about his background. Enjoy. ^_^**

* * *

Constance and Richard Holmes felt they were a rather normal married couple living in the suburbs of London, but their second son—after Mycroft—didn't take after that normalcy in the least bit. In fact, aside from his physical traits, Sherlock didn't seem to take after anyone.

No one was sure when it started, or if it hadn't necessarily started at all and he had just been born this way, but he was always extremely odd, even as a baby.

Unlike the neighbors' children, he was never easily amused. His parents' attempts to play "Patty-cake" or "Peek-a-boo" or other silly games with him only worked the first time; afterwards, it always failed, and they received nothing but a blank stare from Sherlock in return. Constance would sing to him and read him stories at night, but he didn't seem to enjoy it—he didn't seem to dislike it, either, though. For the longest time he didn't smile at all, and his mother and father began to worry that he had some sort of mental disorder.

But, miraculously, Sherlock seemed to be able to entertain himself, and was quite the genius, like his brother (but at least Mycroft hadn't been so emotionally detached). At the age of three months he was already crawling, and his curly, dark brown hair had hardly grown by then. He could walk on his own no more than three months later, and could unlock doors, purposely break sticks in half, and recognize shapes soon after. And still, even at a year old, he had neither talked nor smiled—not once. Constance and Richard hadn't any idea what to make of their son, especially not when he had uttered his first word.

The family had gone out for ice-cream both for Sherlock's first birthday and in yet another attempt to make him happy, and he was sitting on his mother's lap, licking the chocolate ice-cream cone he had, though looking just as apathetic as ever. Mycroft was sitting next to his father and enjoying his ice-cream like any normal eight-year-old. After a while, Richard had become quite frustrated, and bent slightly over the table, sighing.

"Oh, come on, Sherlock, it's your birthday—and it's not every day we get to go out and have ice-cream…. Be happy!"

Sherlock had then looked straight at his father, with a single dark curl falling over one of his eyes, and said, "Bored."

Had they still been holding their own ice-cream, both his parents would have dropped them in their laps—in Constance's case, on Sherlock's head. For a moment they were both silent, and gaped at their son.

"What—what did you say?" breathed Richard, bending further over the table.

"I'm bored," Sherlock repeated nonchalantly. He frowned and wiped his sleeve over his mouth to get the melted ice-cream off.

His father blinked, and his mother gave a tiny gasp. Mycroft frowned at his brother, looking almost angry. They glanced to each other at once, and confirmed in a single moment's look that Sherlock was _not normal_, not normal at all.

* * *

Incidentally, the first time he smiled was only a few weeks later. It was a remarkably sunny day, and Sherlock was sitting on the front porch with his father, who was smoking a pipe. He had spoken a few more times since his birthday, but it was still the same word, and just that: "Bored."

Now, he had a grasshopper pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and was staring at it with an oddly intense gaze for a one-year-old that fit his face quite well nevertheless. It was clear at this point that Sherlock liked to analyze things, to figure things out on his own, to do difficult things that required effort of mind…. On the grass next to his feet were two dead crickets and a dead worm, the result of his other 'analyses.'

His father paid him no notice as he stood, blowing the pipe smoke from his nose. Their neighbor to the left, Mrs. Willoughby, had waved good day to them and begun to cross the street to visit the shops (her husband had taken the car earlier, so she had to walk). Before she had even reached the middle in her lazy stroll, however, a gunshot rang out from nowhere and she was suddenly sprawled on the pavement in a steadily growing pool of blood.

Young Sherlock let the grasshopper go in shock and jumped to his feet, but Richard didn't react immediately. There were a few loud yells and another gunshot, and he could see some faceless figures running across one of the side streets. He wasn't fully aware of what was going on, but he felt the strange sensation that usually preceded fear and a sense of danger—and he liked it. Sherlock stood on his tippy toes and bent at every angle so he could see what was going on, and his face cracked into wide smile as he let out a childish laugh.

Staring at Mrs. Willoughby's body in horror, Richard took a few seconds to come out of his shock and hardly registered his son laughing.

"Sherlock, go, get inside—now!" he said firmly, pointing at the door. Sherlock remained where he was, but his father pointed more urgently—"NOW!"

And reluctantly, he obeyed.

Hours later, everything had been cleaned up, and the police had left. While Mycroft was still visibly frightened and stayed in his room, Sherlock had listened intently to the police while they were talking to his parents. He had seemed quite interested in them.

* * *

As intelligent an infant he had been, having learned to maneuver himself around so quickly, he had not become rambunctious and unmanageable as his parents had feared. He was extremely curious, but almost always did as he was told. The few times that he had directly disobeyed them, though, he hadn't seemed at all upset or affected when his father smacked him. But, as far as socializing could go with a one-year-old, he already acted very independently, and kept to himself. He never asked for help, and seemed angry when someone _did_ help him—with anything from reaching something on a shelf to tying his shoelace.

He especially hated his brother. Mycroft wasn't the sort to be protective over his little brother—but that wasn't the reason. It was just mutual sibling rivalry from the beginning. Their parents often thought it was only for dramatic purposes. After all, Sherlock's boredom could _never_ be satiated….

As Sherlock grew out of the toddler stage and into a young child, both his remarkable intelligence and oddness continued to show and increase at an exponential rate. There was nothing to entertain him inside the house, so he would leave (sometimes out of his bedroom window without his parent's knowledge) and just search for something to keep him busy. He wouldn't consider it a day well spent unless he came home with something to experiment with or had come to a groundbreaking realization after hours of lying on his bed with his stomach facing the ceiling and his hands clasped pensively in front of his face. Once he had found a dead cat and taken it home to dissect, but the smell of death soon reached his parents and they threw it all away, grounding him for a month and arranging for him to meet with a psychiatrist.

Oh, how he _loathed_ the psychiatrist…. In the years to come, he would still never understand why his parents ever thought he needed it.

"Do you take joy in seeing others in pain, Sherlock?" asked the psychiatrist during the first meeting. The man looked through his small, square glasses at him and folded his hands together over his notepad.

"No," said Sherlock blandly. He was leaning exaggeratedly in the chair he was given, trying to fight off the sinking feeling within him—the worst feeling imaginable. Boredom. "But I suppose I would say that even if I did, wouldn't I?"

The psychiatrist narrowed his eyes, and barely a second later, Sherlock said, "Oh, don't be so surprised."

"I didn't even say anything—"

"Normally you'd have been writing something down immediately, but you didn't. The side of your mouth twitched, and your nostrils flared a bit—clearly you're surprised a seven-year-old would talk like this."

His mouth opened and closed a few times, like a fish out of water, but then the man across from him righted himself and went on asking questions.

"Do you have any friends, Sherlock?"

"What would I need friends for?"

"Companionship, fun… Why else?"

"What makes you think I'd have fun with other people?"

"So you like being alone? Would you say that you _hate_ all other people?"

"Not everyone—I just tolerate them. But I do like being alone."

"What do you do for fun, then?"

"Experiments."

At this, the psychiatrist raised his brow, and then frowned. "Experiments?" he repeated. "Like the cat, and all those other things your mother told me about?"

"Yes." Sherlock scowled, and gripped the arms of his chair tightly.

"What possessed you to bring a dead cat into your house, experiment or not?" the man asked.

"I was bored."

An hour later, Sherlock refused to answer anymore, and he had become so fraught with boredom that he had dug his fingernails into his arm until it bled, like he had several times before. It was so far his tactic for stopping the horrible feeling from overwhelming him when he was in situations in which he couldn't do anything to entertain himself. The psychiatrist informed his parents over the phone a few sessions later that he appeared likely to have some sort of psychopathy that was potentially dangerous to himself and others. Needless to say, they continued with the psychotherapy.

* * *

Try as he might, the psychiatrist was never any help, and he was convinced that Sherlock was doing it on purpose. One day, when he had been directly told that. according to science, not just analysis from one person, he was far from sane and that he had serious issues, he replied, "Excellent. Sanity is much too boring."

And as much as many others would have disagreed, Sherlock wasn't deemed too insane to continue attending primary school with other children; he was simply odd. His classmates would pick on him for being such an introvert and substituting books and experiments for human interaction, but rather than being upset, he would say something rude in return. Sometimes, he would retort with a very long explanation of what he knew about them and why they did what they did, and they would be too dumbfounded to say anything else. Often they ended up pushing him into a wall a few seconds later, saying "Freak!"

In all the other children's opinion, he really was a freak. They didn't understand him, they were creeped out by him, but they were also jealous of him. Sherlock Holmes might have been unlike anyone they'd ever known before, but he lived up to his older brother's reputation and was an absolute genius. Hardly a day went by that he didn't correct his own teacher, and it was usually with a sudden and loud "_Wrong._" It was obvious he considered everyone inferior to him, but he was still polite about it; and he did, strangely, work just as well in groups as he did alone. Math, History, Science, and Literature were not boring for him as the subjects were for the standard student, because they let him use his mind. If only the teachers could give him a challenge for once….

The teachers had, actually, suggested him for advanced programs several times over the years. Many took pity on him for all the bullying he went through and figured that he shouldn't be blamed for being unable to connect to people the way others could, and suggested he take up some form of art as a muse for his genius. Sherlock was soon persuaded to take violin lessons, which his parents had been all too glad to pay for—anything to keep him busy and not _bored_.

But in every year throughout his schooling, the students still either avoided him or decided to hate him more every time they were confused by him. He was thought to have a nearly inhuman personality, for he never had any friends and seemed not to have any emotions, either. Or, at least, he didn't feel what you were supposed to at certain events in life.

One day in his third year at secondary school, his Maths teacher, Mr. Stebbins, sadly told the class that the girl who'd been missing from school for a few days had actually been kidnapped, and the police currently had no leads. While the rest of the class clapped hands over their mouths (and some started crying, as they'd known the girl well), Sherlock practically jumped up in his seat and felt a strong sense of déjà vu.

"Perfect—a kidnapping!" he said, his voice slightly higher than usual and his grey eyes lighting up. Everyone stared at him. "This is just _excellent_, when's the last time anything like this happened around here?—I know just what to do, it—"

"Sherlock, could you please sit down?" said Mr. Stebbins firmly, an indefinable expression of grief mingled with exasperation on his face. All the others were either giving him a death glare or looking at him almost with horror—and that was because they were used to this sort of thing with Sherlock. Some of them had gone to the same primary school, and remembered the time when their class rabbit had died and he had gotten this excited.

There was a moment where all was silent and Sherlock stared back at his teacher, and then he slumped into his chair, angry that his thought process had been interrupted. That was one of the most annoying things to him; he couldn't think properly if others were talking, or if he even felt enough brain waves in the room. His mum said he was lying when he mentioned that and could most certainly not tell when other people were thinking, but he really could.

For the rest of that lesson—for the rest of the day and the few after, really—he sat in agony, ignoring the Maths lecture on the Law of Sines and instead focusing on everything he knew about Rebeccah, the girl that had been kidnapped. He wasn't being exactly discrete about how hard he was thinking, so those that sat near him continued to stare at him weirdly for a while. They couldn't force him to be sad for the girl, though, so they said nothing, and neither did Mr. Stebbins.

"Lord, does he really think he's going to catch the kidnapper and find Rebeccah himself?"

This was what Sherlock heard murmured by the other students while walking from class to class that week, and he found himself strangely satisfied. So everyone knew what skills he prided himself in, then.

It also gave him more of an incentive to put together facts and memories, which he spent days working out, and try to find out as much as he could. To the amazement of his classmates and countless others, he _did_ end up realizing what the police hadn't and discovered who the man was that took the girl and where he and Rebeccah were. The police had told him how risky and dangerous his behavior had been in all that it had taken to work it out, but had also promised him a strong consideration should he choose to join Law Enforcement.

The only thing was, Sherlock didn't think there was a job that would suit him, since he knew that the police were the ones who apprehended criminals, and detectives were the ones who investigated scenes for the information. He loved the thrill of solving a crime, but the action was only part of that thrill. And he wanted to be known for his mind, but just sitting around after you've given your two cents was boring.

* * *

Now having been featured in several London newspapers, Sherlock was quite well-known. However, after the case of that girl's kidnapping, he craved more. He dropped a very long way from the thrill of the action to having only his usual experiments, and it was into a bout of what seemed like depression to his mother and father. He would stay in his room and not talk at all for days on end, and didn't even have the spirit to play the violin—that was reserved for thinking time. All he did was lie on his bed in varying positions, sometimes with his hands folded over his stomach or face, and sometimes with his skull.

That skull was the closest thing he had to a friend. It had been a present for his twelfth birthday, and he greatly appreciated having something to talk to that wasn't an idiot—even _he_ needed to talk now and then. Besides, the skull held a lot of meaning for him…. Skulls were there to protect the brain, which was what he valued most. If he never spoke to anyone, he might have lost what was left of his sanity—not that it had ever been all there.

But there wasn't anything else Sherlock had to do, and books and experiments simply weren't enough for him anymore. He could deal with it, but it left a deep-seated hunger that weighed him down. And it stayed like this for the rest of his high school years, even through all the changes: He suddenly had a thing for scarves, he was exposed to new technology as it was exposed to the rest of the world, he started referring to his brother as his arch nemesis, he began refining his art of deduction….

Sherlock never changed relationship-wise, though he did apparently become more appealing to women over the years. The first time he noticed it was when he was playing his violin in a park, and he was soon joined by a woman who stepped up behind the bench he was sitting on.

"You're amazing—what song is that?" she asked, hardly making herself noticeable before speaking. But Sherlock had seen her reflection in the glossy surface of his violin anyway, so it didn't matter, though he was still slightly annoyed.

"I'm not sure," he said without looking at her.

"How can you not know what song you're playing?"

"I came upon the second half of a sheet of notes the other day, but couldn't find the first page with the name. I have a photographic memory."

"Oh, that's cool…. What's your name?" The woman walked around the side of the bench so he could see her.

"Sherlock Holmes. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like you to go away. I was in deep thought before you showed up."

After that, he noticed that more and more women were attempting to flirt with him—unsuccessfully, of course. But they likely wouldn't have done so if they saw the side of him that had caused him to come home with a black eye as a child.

Sherlock didn't want or need a person to be close to, and had truthfully never thought about it or been attracted to anyone. The idea of being held down with obligations to make another person happy and having to change yourself was just awful to him. However, it put him in a good position, as that would help in the future for flirting just to get what he wanted…. But even later, when he went to university, he didn't have anyone closer than the colleagues he liked a little bit and respected. Because even then, when he was studying all sorts of sciences with the best of the best, his life was still highly lacking in stimulation.

It was a few years later that he would be hired to do what he loved to do so dearly, but until then, he struggled through every day, through every nicotine patch and every violin solo with the horrible thought that he was _doomed_ to be bored….

Bored, forever.

* * *

**This is my first Sherlock fic, so I'd_ really_ like it if you'd review and tell me what you thought about it!**


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